New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1887-08-03
American Children
II was always rather squea

my women and Children Charles
Lamb said, and it is well known that
Byron. whose feeling towards women
was much like that Of refined sailor
(supposing such character to exist
could not bear to see woman eat.
Who does not feel a shock when a
woman or a child falls far below his
idealp A modern poet expressed the
wish that he might be comprised
about by the pure and innocent forms
of children; but he would not have
cared to be surrounded by a group of
American boys and girls, shrieking
slang at the top Of their voices, eating
candy voraciously and delivering their
opinions with confidence upon matters
hey ond their comprehension. Between
the ages of twelve and nineteen the
American boy is apt to be monde
script, restless, dissatisfied and un-
natural person. Not content with
being boy. he tries to make himself a
man by the use of cigarettes, by man
nish airs. by precocious knowledge OF
the world.
A traveller of some distinction, who
was in this country not long ago, re-
marked that it made him shudder to
hear our boys and girls freely express
ing opinions upon religion, politics.
science, what not; and il we do not
shudder ourselves it is because we are
accustomed to the practice. Who has
not heard a young slip of girl, whose
education outside of elementary studies
at school has been conducted chiefly
by ..Rhoda Broughton'' and like
masters of thought, settling off-hand
the question OF universal salvation,
the controversy between the Catholic
and Protestant churches, ''women's
rights the merits of the Anglican
creed or the ethics OF divorce with as
much freedom as she would use in
criticising her mothers new bonnet or
her fathers character. The children
themselves can hardly be blamed, for
they are what their surroundings make
them. What evil influences peryert
the American child! Partly, no doubt,
the perversion may be ascribed to the
working out, or to the redatctio I'D c6-
surduna, OF the democratic spirit. A
man who incorrectly considers himself
to be as wise, as well-bred, as impor-
tant as anybody, in the community,
who, in a word looks up to nobody,
will not be reverenced by his own
children. The feeling Of respect and
the sense of subordination do not exist
in his family, and consequently the
children are entirely deficient in that
veneration which is natural to
childhood. and lacking in this,
they are not children, but imps.
Plato said that in an ultra
democratic state the very horses and
dogs in the street wore an air of impu-
dence and self-will. Children in all
ranks suffer als9 from a too hasty de-
velopment.
Their studies are often forced; they
are encouraged or allowed to take part
in conversations that are above them,
and they are surfeted with foolish
literature. A child should read few
books. and some of them, at least,
should be such as he does not altogeth-
Ell understand, for then his imagination
will be developed, his fancy enriched
and his intellectual coriosity stimulat-
ed. There is nothing SO good for him
as to let him alone. The perceptions
of children are wonderfully acute, but
they are only dulled by much reading
of Juvenile literatul e. !" or by the pre-
mature exercise of their reasoning
powers. In measure, the peculiar
faults of American children may. doubt
less be attributed to climate When a.
boy delivers his most ordinary remarks
in loud soprano scream, or climbs all
over railroad car, or bolts his dinner
q Inn fl,n1
ever much annoyed, will consider that
our dry and rasping climate has over
set the nervous system of the lad
Moreover. unless his case is an excep-
tional one, he has never been taught to
modulate his voice. The child whose
mother invariably speaks in high pitch
ed tones can hardly be expected to dis.
cover for himself that there is another
and better way. Or the whole, then,
the more the subject is examined the
more clearly it appears that the pc
culiar faults of American children may
truly be described. as partly geo
graphical and largely parental in thei1
origin.
Their virtues are as striking as their
faults. Very few children are alto
gether truthful, but certainly the
American child is pre-eminent in this
respect, surprising even his English
contemporary. Our children are, more
over, so frank, so nimble-wtted and SO
sympathetic that often they charm
away the disagreeable impression of
their worst faults. AS for the Ameri-
can girl, she is perhaps most engaging
when she might still be called child.
But with this complex and fascinating
person, the despair and the de-
light of the noyel-writer, one cannot
deal at the end of an article. Ralph
Easto'a, IN The Epoch